Precise Performance of Linear Denoisers in the Proportional Regime

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Ghane, Reza, Akhtiamov, Danil, Hassibi, Babak
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Ghane, Reza
Akhtiamov, Danil
Hassibi, Babak
author_facet Ghane, Reza
Akhtiamov, Danil
Hassibi, Babak
contents In the present paper we study the performance of linear denoisers for noisy data of the form $\mathbf{x} + \mathbf{z}$, where $\mathbf{x} \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is the desired data with zero mean and unknown covariance $\mathbfΣ$, and $\mathbf{z} \sim \mathcal{N}(0, \mathbfΣ_{\mathbf{z}})$ is additive noise. Since the covariance $\mathbfΣ$ is not known, the standard Wiener filter cannot be employed for denoising. Instead we assume we are given samples $\mathbf{x}_1,\dots,\mathbf{x}_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ from the true distribution. A standard approach would then be to estimate $\mathbfΣ$ from the samples and use it to construct an ``empirical" Wiener filter. However, in this paper, motivated by the denoising step in diffusion models, we take a different approach whereby we train a linear denoiser $\mathbf{W}$ from the data itself. In particular, we synthetically construct noisy samples $\hat{\mathbf{x}}_i$ of the data by injecting the samples with Gaussian noise with covariance $\mathbfΣ_1 \neq \mathbfΣ_{\mathbf{z}}$ and find the best $\mathbf{W}$ that approximates $\mathbf{W}\hat{\mathbf{x}}_i \approx \mathbf{x}_i$ in a least-squares sense. In the proportional regime $\frac{n}{d} \rightarrow κ> 1$ we use the {\it Convex Gaussian Min-Max Theorem (CGMT)} to analytically find the closed form expression for the generalization error of the denoiser obtained from this process. Using this expression one can optimize over $\mathbfΣ_1$ to find the best possible denoiser. Our numerical simulations show that our denoiser outperforms the ``empirical" Wiener filter in many scenarios and approaches the optimal Wiener filter as $κ\rightarrow\infty$.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_18483
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Precise Performance of Linear Denoisers in the Proportional Regime
Ghane, Reza
Akhtiamov, Danil
Hassibi, Babak
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
In the present paper we study the performance of linear denoisers for noisy data of the form $\mathbf{x} + \mathbf{z}$, where $\mathbf{x} \in \mathbb{R}^d$ is the desired data with zero mean and unknown covariance $\mathbfΣ$, and $\mathbf{z} \sim \mathcal{N}(0, \mathbfΣ_{\mathbf{z}})$ is additive noise. Since the covariance $\mathbfΣ$ is not known, the standard Wiener filter cannot be employed for denoising. Instead we assume we are given samples $\mathbf{x}_1,\dots,\mathbf{x}_n \in \mathbb{R}^d$ from the true distribution. A standard approach would then be to estimate $\mathbfΣ$ from the samples and use it to construct an ``empirical" Wiener filter. However, in this paper, motivated by the denoising step in diffusion models, we take a different approach whereby we train a linear denoiser $\mathbf{W}$ from the data itself. In particular, we synthetically construct noisy samples $\hat{\mathbf{x}}_i$ of the data by injecting the samples with Gaussian noise with covariance $\mathbfΣ_1 \neq \mathbfΣ_{\mathbf{z}}$ and find the best $\mathbf{W}$ that approximates $\mathbf{W}\hat{\mathbf{x}}_i \approx \mathbf{x}_i$ in a least-squares sense. In the proportional regime $\frac{n}{d} \rightarrow κ> 1$ we use the {\it Convex Gaussian Min-Max Theorem (CGMT)} to analytically find the closed form expression for the generalization error of the denoiser obtained from this process. Using this expression one can optimize over $\mathbfΣ_1$ to find the best possible denoiser. Our numerical simulations show that our denoiser outperforms the ``empirical" Wiener filter in many scenarios and approaches the optimal Wiener filter as $κ\rightarrow\infty$.
title Precise Performance of Linear Denoisers in the Proportional Regime
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18483